Today, in Thunderbird, I received the notification that I should compact my folders. I was about to go and turn off these reminders without compacting the folders -- whi… (read more)
Today, in Thunderbird, I received the notification that I should compact my folders. I was about to go and turn off these reminders without compacting the folders -- which is what I did on my last computer. Then I read in some thread that it's actually an "important" thing to do, which seemed to contradict something I read about it at some point in the past. There was one thread from at least a couple years ago, probably several years ago (I wish I could find the thread), but somebody had "compacted" their folders, which then caused something to happen that they didn't expect to happen -- I can't remember what -- but I think it was something along the lines of, they lost something they could never get back. I don't know if they lost some messages that they wanted, I don't know. But this person was suggesting that there should be a warning about "this" happening when you compact the folders. Then someone else wrote a very long and very well-reasoned reply explaining why expecting such a warning wouldn't really make much sense or be necessary, because the possibility of "this" happening was so obvious that a warning wouldn't be warranted.
So I figured, if "compacting" folders can make me permanently lose something I don't want to lose, then it's something I don't want to do. (Again, if I could find that thread, I would post a link and/or provide more details).
Then in another thread I read today, it was suggested that it's riskier not to compact your folders. So which is it? Why is it that someone had some problem (again, I'm sorry, I wish I could find the original thread) where they lost something permanently when they did compact their folders, and others are saying it's riskier not to?